Movie Reviews

A documentary by Yung Chang. Featuring Yu Shui and Chen Bo Yu Rated PG. Opens Friday, February 15, at the Ridge Theatre

In Up the Yangtze, talented writer-director Yung Chang enjoys long, uninterrupted takes, particularly of the tale’s central cruise ship gliding through the mist of that titular river. But there’s nothing superfluous or aesthetically fussy about this superb National Film Board documentary, which manages to combine the personal with the political and the poetic without hammering the viewer on any front.

To that end, Chang follows a luxury liner, packed with European and North American sensation seekers, on its winding course toward the Three Gorges Dam project. It’s the largest earth-shaping project ever undertaken, and one already profoundly affecting millions of people along the swelling banks of the famous river, which will rise more than 50 metres in some areas.

Along the way, we spend time with melancholy Yu Shui, the daughter of peasant farmers eking out a living on the changing riverbank, and the more spoiled, outgoing Chen Bo Yu, the only son of an urban, middle-class family. They get hired to serve tourists on the ship and we watch them on board after they are redubbed Cindy and Jerry, respectively.

Some of the most amusing scenes—and there is sly comedy here to go with more profoundly heartbreaking material—take place in their daily English classes. An eager-beaver instructor gives them such subtle advice as: “Never compare Canada with the United States” and the much more obvious caveat, “Never tell anyone that they are old, pale, or fat”.

Supported by a mix of archaic Chinese music and modern ambient sounds from composer Olivier Alary, the sumptuous cinematography by China’s Wang Shi Qing takes on a life of its own—apart from Yangtze’s complex meanings, but giving them more depth at every bend in the river.